In the cleaning and pressing of garments, the garments are placed on inflatable bag structures after the garments have been cleaned in order to remove the wrinkles from the garments and to shape the garments. The expandable bag structures usually are mounted on a supporting framework which is rotatable about an upright axis, and one or more clamp elements are movable toward and away from the framework to engage the garment and hold the coat tails, lapels, etc. of the garment in place during the period when the inflatable presser bag and garment are being expanded treated by the steam and hot air.
Some of the problems involved in the use of the prior art garment presser bar arrangements are that the steam and hot air used to inflate the bags and treat the garments on the expanded bag tend to escape from the bag in those areas not contacted by the garment draped on the bag, thus wasting energy and reducing the effectiveness of the procedure, and the garment bags are somewhat uncontrollable in that they tend to over inflate and stretch portions of the garment draped thereon, causing wrinkles in the garment, especially about the lower edge of the garment.
In order to avoid over inflation of the garments, the prior art inflatable bag structures were made in different sizes and shapes, small bags being usable for the smaller garments and large bags being usable for the larger garments. Of course, this required several bag structures and supporting framework to be available, and usually resulted in the worker using only a single bag structure of a particular size on a single framework to treat garments of all sizes, and many garments were either over expanded or under expanded in the process.
In order to solve the problem of improper expansion of the garments, various adjustable bag structures were developed. Some bags include zippers placed in the bag which could be selectively opened and closed to adjust the size of the garment presser bag, and another attempted solution included the connection of draw strings to inside areas of the presser bag that could be manipulated from outside the bag to expand and contract the bag. Another attempted solution was to use a non-inflatable bag that controlled the flow of steam and hot air to some extent, but which did not expand the garment placed on the bag structure. A further attempted solution was the use of a double bag structure, with an outer bag connected at its lower end to the lower end of the inner bag, with an elastic band in the upper end of the outer bag that could be moved up and down the inner bag. The double bag structure helped to control the over expansion of the inner bag and the garment and also constricted the flow of fluid through the lower portion of the inner bag.
While some of the prior art garment presser bag assemblies can be manipulated to some extent to control over expansion of the presser bag and of the garment, the workers that use the garment presser bag assemblies are likely to ignore some of the control features because of the inconvenience and difficulty in manipulating the control features. Also, some of the control features wear out or otherwise become inoperable during the use of the presser bag, and the garment presser bag assembly continues to be used after the control features are unusable, causing improper expansion, wrinkling and stretching of the garments.